John Steinbeck's Poodle, Charley - America Comes Alive World War II Welcome to America Comes Alive!, a site I created to share little-known stories of America's past. These stories are about Americans - people just like you - who have made a difference and changed the course of history. Look around the site and find what inspires you. Kate Kelly John Steinbeck’s Poodle, Charley By 1960 John Steinbeck (1902-1968) had achieved both fame and fortune. He and his third wife, Elaine, split their time primarily in New York City and Sag Harbor, and most of their trips were to Europe. Because Steinbeck had been ill the previous year, he began to re-consider how he wanted to spend the next few years. He decided he wanted to re-acquaint himself with his own country, and he planned to take several months to go on his own, criss-crossing the country “in search of America.” He took with him his ten-year-old standard poodle, Charley. The book that resulted was Travels with Charley: In Search of America. Charley was an eager traveler and loved road trips.

At a time when camper trucks were a bit unusual, Steinbeck decided this was the ideal way for him to travel so he commissioned a specially-built truck that he then proceeded to outfit with necessary equipment and supplies. During the planning and packing, Steinbeck writes that Charley was in a state of mild hysteria, worrying that perhaps he wasn’t on the passenger manifest. “During the weeks of preparation he was underfoot the whole time and made a damned nuisance of himself. He took to hiding in the truck, creeping in and trying to make himself look small.” Of course, Charley was part of the plan all along. Steinbeck wanted him along, and Elaine felt that it was better that her husband have some type of companion along rather than traveling solo. Elaine planned to meet up with them at a couple of stops along the way. Travels with Charley: In Search of America Rocinante Before they departed, Steinbeck christened the truck “Rocinante,” after Don Quixote’s trusty horse. Charley rode shotgun in the truck, and his method for alerting Steinbeck that it was time for a rest stop was a “Ftt” sound that was generally effective.

The two would stop and Charley would find an unsuspecting bush or tree to anoint, and Steinbeck would poke around a bit to see if anyone or anything interested him. While Charley is an ever-present companion, he does not participate in many activities that are described in the book. One passage in the book, however, is priceless for dog owners: Steinbeck’s description of how Charley wakes him in the morning. “Charley likes to get up early, and he likes me to get up early, too. And why shouldn’t he? Right after his breakfast he goes back to sleep. Over the years he has developed a number of innocent-appearing ways to get me up. He can shake himself and his collar loud enough to wake the dead. If that doesn’t work he gets a sneezing fit. But perhaps his most irritating method is to sit quietly beside the bed and stare into my face with a sweet and forgiving look on his face; I come out of deep sleep with the feeling of being looked at. But I have learned to keep my eyes tight shut. If I even blink he sneezes and stretches, and that night’s sleep is over for me.

Often the war of wills goes on for quite a time, I squinching my eyes shut and he forgiving me, but he nearly always wins. He likes traveling so much he wanted to get started early, and early for Charley is the first tempering of darkness with the dawn.” Though Charley suffered two bouts of prostatitis that required vet care and a pause in the journey, Steinbeck makes it clear that Charley is an asset. When Steinbeck does get a conversation going it often begins with the dog. Most Memorable Trip Scene The most memorable and historic moments described in Travel with Charley occur near the end of the trip when Steinbeck visited New Orleans. He is there when protesters (white parents who became known as the Cheerleaders) showed up daily to shout their disapproval of school integration. Four African-American girls, including Ruby Bridges, were escorted to school by federal marshals, amidst taunting of racial epithets and physical effort to interfere. The crowd stayed around to shout just as many invectives at the white children who arrived intending to attend an integrated school. The scene is a reminder of our country’s continued struggle with race issues.

From New Orleans, Steinbeck and Charley turn north and are glad to return to New York and home. There is no afterward that explains Charley in retirement, but we can rest assured that he was an able companion on the trip and lived out the rest of his years with the Steinbecks. The Book Today Reading the book today is a disappointment. While there is some interesting commentary on our country and a few apt descriptions, of places he visited or things he saw, much of it is Steinbeck’s ruminations during his travel. The time spent with the book often feels like listening to the complaints of a crotchety old uncle. Much of the time Steinbeck has difficulty getting people to talk to him… something I absolutely don’t understand. If you look pleasant and interested, most Americans will be happy to tell you some of their story. While Steinbeck’s early work was a gift to America for enlightening us to the plight of those caught up in the Depression, and his novels contained characters readers will never forget, he had clearly gone through some sort of a change—perhaps health-related or perhaps great affected by the blacklisting era that affected many of his friends; he was not blacklisted but was a constant target of the IRS.

At any rate, something put him in a different state of mind during these later years. That said, the parts involving Charley are still everything a dog owner would want. John Steinbeck dog quotes are about his beloved poodle, Charley | MY NAME IS ROXIE MY NAME IS ROXIE John Steinbeck dog quotes are about his beloved poodle, Charley Most of these John Steinbeck dog quotes are about his beloved poodle, Charley, who accompanied Steinbeck everywhere. “A dog is a bond between strangers.” “I need a dog pretty badly. I dreamed of dogs last night. They sat in a circle and looked at me and I wanted all of them.” “ I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that dogs think humans are nuts.” “It is my experience that in some areas Charley is more intelligent that I am, but in others he is abysmally ignorant. He can’t read, can’t drive a car, and has no grasp of mathematics. But in his own field of endeavor, which he is now practicing, the slow, imperial smelling over and anointing on an area, he has no peer.

Of course his horizons are limited, but how wide are mine?” About Charley, his poodle “Sir, this is a unique dog. He does not live by tooth or fang. He respects the right of cats to be cats although he doesn’t admire them. He turns his steps rather than disturb an earnest caterpillar. His greatest fear is that someone will point out a rabbit and suggest that he chase it. This is a dog of peace and tranquility.” About Charley, his poodle “ He was born in Bercy on the outskirts of Paris and trained in France, and while he knows a little Poodle-English, he responds quickly only to commands in French. Otherwise he has to translate, and that slows him down.” “Charley is a mind-reading dog. There have been many trips in his lifetime, and often he has to be left at home. He knows we are going long before the suitcase has come out, and he paces and worries and whines and goes into a state of mild hysteria.” John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley, is about his cross-country adventures with his poodle. Like this: Like Loading...

One response to “John Steinbeck dog quotes are about his beloved poodle, Charley” Steinbeck’s ‘Travels With Charley’ Gets a Fact-Checking - The New York Times The New York Times Books |A Reality Check for Steinbeck and Charley Search Continue reading the main story In the fall of 1960 an ailing, out-of-sorts John Steinbeck , pretty much depleted as a novelist, decided that his problem was he had lost touch with America. He outfitted a three-quarter-ton pickup truck as a sort of land yacht and set off from his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., with his French poodle, Charley, to drive cross-country. The idea was that he would travel alone, stay at campgrounds and reconnect himself with the country by talking to the locals he met along the way. Steinbeck’s book-length account of his journey, “Travels With Charley: In Search of America,” published in 1962, was generally well reviewed and became a best-seller. It remains in print, regarded by some as a classic of American travel writing.

Almost from the beginning, though, a few readers pointed out that many of the conversations in the book had a stagey, wooden quality, not unlike the dialogue in Steinbeck’s fiction. Early on in the book, for example, Steinbeck has a New England farmer talking in folksy terms about Nikita S. Khrushchev’s shoe-pounding (or -brandishing, depending on whom you ask) speech at the United Nations weeks before Khrushchev actually visited the United Nations. A particularly unlikely encounter occurs at a campsite near Alice, N.D., where a Shakespearean actor, mistaking Steinbeck for a fellow thespian, greets him with a sweeping bow, saying, “I see you are of the profession,” and then proceeds to talk about John Gielgud. Even Steinbeck’s son John said he was convinced that his father never talked to many of the people he wrote about, and added, “He just sat in his camper and wrote all that [expletive].” Photo John Steinbeck with Charley at home in Sag Harbor in 1962.

Credit Bettmann/Corbis In the current issue of the libertarian monthly Reason, Bill Steigerwald, a former journalist for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, writes that not only is the meeting with the actor made up, but on the evening in question, Oct. 12, Steinbeck wasn’t anywhere near Alice. He was in Beach, N.D., more than 300 miles to the west, staying not in the camper but in a motel. Continue reading the main story According to Mr. Steigerwald, Steinbeck stayed in motels a lot — when he wasn’t at luxury hotels. On a night when he supposedly camped out on a farm near Lancaster, N.H., Steinbeck was actually at the Spalding Inn, a hotel so fancy that he had to borrow a coat and tie to eat in the dining room. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Nor was Steinbeck alone that much. On more than half of his trip he was accompanied by his wife, Elaine. All told Mr.

Steigerwald estimates that Steinbeck spent no more than a couple of nights in the camper itself, and says, “Virtually nothing he wrote in ‘Charley’ about where he slept and whom he met on his dash across America can be trusted.” The Reason article is a distillation of a blog Mr. Steigerwald wrote for The Post-Gazette for several weeks in 2010 while retracing Steinbeck’s journey in a leased Toyota Rav4. And he did sleep in the car, he pointed out in a recent phone interview. He stopped frequently in Wal-Mart parking lots, and once he parked in a car dealer’s lot, impersonating a used car. Mr. Steigerwald insisted that he began his project not intending to expose Steinbeck but to commemorate his journey and to write a book about how the United States had changed in 50 years. “I didn’t set out to blow the whistle,” he said. “As a libertarian, I kind of like the old guy. He liked guns; he liked property rights.” Photo John Steinbeck Credit Bettmann/Corbis In the published version of “Travels With Charley” Steinbeck’s itinerary is often hard to follow, so Mr.

Steigerwald created a timeline, drawing on newspaper accounts, biographies and Steinbeck’s letters, to determine where Steinbeck was on such and such a date. Discrepancies with the book’s account immediately popped up. Mr. Steigerwald also consulted the handwritten first draft of “Travels With Charley” — now at the Morgan Library & Museum — where Steinbeck’s wife is a much more frequent presence than she is in the final text. “This is just grunt journalism,” Mr. Steigerwald said of his research methods. “Anyone with a library card and a skeptical gene in his body could do what I did.” He added that he was a little surprised that his findings hadn’t made more of a ripple among Steinbeck scholars: “ ‘Travels With Charley’ for 50 years has been touted, venerated, reviewed, mythologized as a true story, a nonfiction account of John Steinbeck’s journey of discovery, driving slowly across America, camping out under the stars alone.

Other than the fact that none of that is true, what can I tell you?” He added, “If scholars aren’t concerned about this, what are they scholaring about?” Susan Shillinglaw, who teaches English at San Jose State University and is a scholar in residence at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, Calif., said in a phone interview: “Any writer has the right to shape materials, and undoubtedly Steinbeck left things out. That doesn’t make the book a lie.” Talking about the authenticity of the characters in “Travels With Charley,” she said, “Whether or not Steinbeck met that actor where he says he did, he could have met such a figure at some point in his life. And perhaps he enhanced some of the anecdotes with the waitress. Does it really matter that much?” Photo The camper that John Steinbeck drove across the United States in 1960. Credit Noah Berger for The New York Times Jay Parini, the author of a 1995 biography of Steinbeck who wrote the introduction to the Penguin edition of “Travels With Charley,” said he was surprised to learn that Elaine Steinbeck had accompanied her husband on so much of the trip.

“I spent several hours with Elaine, and she never mentioned that,” he added. “She made a big deal about how painful it was for them to be separated and how she insisted that he take the dog along for company.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story About the book’s accuracy he said: “I have always assumed that to some degree it’s a work of fiction. Steinbeck was a fiction writer, and here he’s shaping events, massaging them. He probably wasn’t using a tape recorder. But I still feel there’s an authenticity there.” He added, talking about Mr. Steigerwald’s discoveries: “Does this shake my faith in the book? Quite the opposite. I would say hooray for Steinbeck. If you want to get at the spirit of something, sometimes it’s important to use the techniques of a fiction writer. Why has this book stayed in the American imagination, unlike, for example, Michael Harrington’s ‘The Other America,’ which came out at the same time?” In 2010, Bill Barich published “Long Way Home: On the Trail of Steinbeck’s America,” an account of his own Steigerwald-like journey, in which he came to some more upbeat conclusions than Steinbeck had.

“I’m fairly certain that Steinbeck made up most of the book,” he said recently. “The dialogue is so wooden.” He added: “Steinbeck was extremely depressed, in really bad health, and was discouraged by everyone from making the trip. He was trying to recapture his youth, the spirit of the knight-errant. But at that point he was probably incapable of interviewing ordinary people. He’d become a celebrity and was more interested in talking to Dag Hammarskjold and Adlai Stevenson.” In some ways, Mr. Barich went on, Steinbeck’s view of America was much darker than he let on in the book. “The die was probably cast long before he hit the road,” he said, “and a lot of what he wrote was colored by the fact that he was so ill. But I still take seriously a lot of what he said about the country. His perceptions were right on the money about the death of localism, the growing homogeneity of America, the trashing of the environment.

He was prescient about all that.” A version of this article appears in print on April 4, 2011, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Reality Check for Steinbeck and Charley. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe John Steinbeck Dog Quotes John Steinbeck Dog Quotes For You To Enjoy Most of these seven John Steinbeck dog quotes are about his beloved poodle, Charley, who accompanied Steinbeck everywhere. A dog is a bond between strangers. I need a dog pretty badly. I dreamed of dogs last night. They sat in a circle and looked at me and I wanted all of them. I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that dogs think humans are nuts. It is my experience that in some areas Charley is more intelligent that I am, but in others he is abysmally ignorant. He can't read, can't drive a car, and has no grasp of mathematics. But in his own field of endeavor, which he is now practicing, the slow, imperial smelling over and anointing on an area, he has no peer.

Of course his horizons are limited, but how wide are mine? [About Charley] Sir, this is a unique dog. He does not live by tooth or fang. He respects the right of cats to be cats although he doesn't admire them. He turns his steps rather than disturb an earnest caterpillar. His greatest fear is that someone will point out a rabbit and suggest that he chase it. This is a dog of peace and tranquility. He was born in Bercy on the outskirts of Paris and trained in France, and while he knows a little Poodle-English, he responds quickly only to commands in French. Otherwise he has to translate, and that slows him down. [About Charley] Charley is a mind-reading dog. There have been many trips in his lifetime, and often he has to be left at home. He knows we are going long before the suitcase has come out, and he paces and worries and whines and goes into a state of mild hysteria. John Steinbeck, Charley (1950 - 1961) - Find A Grave Memorial Monterey County California, USA Famed Pet.

Charley was the great American author John Steinbeck's French Poodle, born and raised in a Paris suburb, who knew "a little poodle-english," but who responded "only to commands in French." The full name of this 'blue' Standard Poodle was Charles le Chien, and he and Steinback made an enviable pair traveling about the country in a pickup-camper named Rocinante after Don Quixote's horse. In the fall of 1960, the illustrious John Steinbeck (2/27/1902-12/20/1968) set off across the United States to rediscover America on a sort of mid-life crisis road trip. His sole companion and comrade was Charles le Chien, a.k.a. Charley, whom Steinbeck referred to as his ambassador who was a great ice-breaker helping ease communication with those met on their journey.

Sharing the cab of the three-quarter ton pickup truck which had been saddled with a camper top for all the comforts of home, the duo trekked from coast to coast, east to west, and back; 10,000 plus miles, 34 states, and three months on the open road. Month's later, he recorded their journey in the near classic book, "Travels with Charley: In Search of America," for which Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature. (bio by: Paul Theodore Riegert) John Steinbeck - Wall Street International John Steinbeck Travels with Charley: In Search of America. The american author travelled around his country in 1960 15 APR 2011 by SALVATORE INCARDONA Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a travelogue written by American author John Steinbeck. It recounts tales of a 1960 road trip with his French standard poodle, Charley, around the United States. He wrote that he was moved by a desire to see his country on a personal level, since he made his living writing about it.

He wrote of having many questions going into his journey, the main one being, "What are Americans like today?" However, he found that the "new America" did not live up to his expectations. Steinbeck tells of travelling throughout the United States in a specially-made camper he named Rocinante, after the horse of Don Quixote. His travels start in Long Island, New York, and roughly follow the outer border of the United States, from Maine to the Pacific Northwest, down into his native Salinas Valley in California, across to Texas, up through the Deep South, and then back to New York. Such a trip encompasses nearly 10,000 miles. According to Thom Steinbeck, the author's oldest son, the real reason for the trip was that Steinbeck knew he was dying and wanted to see his country one last time. Thom says he was surprised that his stepmother (Steinbeck's wife) allowed Steinbeck to make the trip; because of his heart condition he could have died at any time. PART ONE Steinbeck began the book by describing his life-long wanderlust and his preparations to travel the country again, after 25 years.

He was 58 years old in 1960 and nearing the end of his career, but he felt that he "was writing of something [he] did not know about, and it seemed to [him] that in a so-called writer this is criminal". He had a truck fitted with a custom camper-shell for his journey and planned on leaving after Labor Day from his home in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York. Steinbeck delayed his trip slightly due to Hurricane Donna which made a direct hit on Long Island. Steinbeck's exploits in saving his boat during the middle of the hurricane foreshadow his fearless, or even reckless, state of mind to dive into the unknown. PART TWO Steinbeck began his trip by traveling by ferry from Long Island to Connecticut, passing the Naval Submarine Base New London where many of the new nuclear submarines were stationed. Steinbeck noted that the “submarines are armed with mass murder, our silly, only way of deterring mass murder”. He talked to a sailor stationed on a sub who enjoyed being on them because "they offer all kinds of – future". Steinbeck credited uncertainty about the future to rapid technological and political changes.

He mentioned the wastefulness of American cities and society, and the large amount of waste as a result of everything being "packaged". He had a conversation with a man. The two concluded that a combination of fear and uncertainty over the future limited their discussion over the election. Steinbeck enjoyed learning about people through local morning radio programs, although he noted that: "If Teen Angel is top of the list in Maine, it is the top of the list in Montana", showing the ubiquity of culture brought on by mass media technologies. Steinbeck next took US Highway 1 to Maine. On the way he noted a similarity among the “summer” stores, which were all closed for the winter. Antique shops that bordered a lot of the roads up North, sold old “junk” that Steinbeck would have bought if he thought he had room for it, noting that he had more junk at home than most stores. He stopped at a little restaurant just outside the town of Bangor where he learned that other people’s attitudes can greatly affect your own attitude. Steinbeck then went to Deer Isle, Maine, to visit his friend and former literary agent, who now lived there.

His friend always raved about Deer Isle, but could never describe exactly what about it that was so captivating. While driving to Deer Isle, Steinbeck stopped and asked for directions. He later learned not to ask for directions in Maine because locals don’t like to talk to tourists and tend to give them incorrect information. When Steinbeck arrived at the house where he was supposed to stay, he met a terse cat and ate the best lobster he had ever tasted, fresh from the local waters and not traumatized by travel. Next, he went to northern Maine, where he spent the night in a field alongside a group of French-speaking migrant potato pickers from Canada, with whom he shared some French vintage. Steinbeck's descriptions of the workers was sympathetic and even romanticized, a clear nod to his works such as The Grapes of Wrath which made him famous. Steinbeck next traveled to Niagara Falls and some Midwestern cities. Before reaching those destinations, he took a detour and discussed his dislike of the government. He said that the government makes a person feel small because it doesn't matter what you say, if it’s not on paper and certified by an official, the government doesn't care.

As he traveled on, he described how wherever he went people’s attitudes and beliefs changed. All states differ by how people may talk to one another or treat other people. For example, as he drove through Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois, there was a marked increase in the population from state to state. The small villages he had initially seen were now growing into big cities and the roads, such as the U.S. 90, were filled with traffic. Also, everywhere he went, people's views changed. For example, when he went to New England, he saw that people there spoke tersely and usually waited for the newcomer to come up to him and initiate conversation. However, in Midwestern cities, people were more outgoing and were willing to come right up to him. He explained how strangers talked freely without caution as a sense of longing for something new and being somewhere other than the place they were. They were so used to their everyday life that when someone new came to town, they were eager to explore new information and imagine new places. It was as if a new change had entered their life every time someone from out of town came into their state.

Traveling further, Steinbeck discovered that technology was advancing so quickly as to give Americans more and more instant gratification. For example, Steinbeck was intrigued by mobile homes. Mobile homes showed a new way of living for America, reflecting the attitude that if you don't like a given place, you should be able to pick up and leave. Steinbeck also discussed this change in America when he traveled through cities of great production such as Youngstown, Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Pontiac, Flint, South Bend, and Gary. He compared what he saw to the Uffizi in Florence and the Louvre in Paris. PART THREE Steinbeck traveled across Wisconsin towards North Dakota. He traveled along U.S. Highway 10 through St. Paul on an 'Evacuation Route,' "a road designed by fear". This instance introduced one of Steinbeck's many realizations about American society: the fact that it is driven by fear. Once through St. Paul, he went to Sauk Centre, the birthplace of writer Sinclair Lewis, but was disheartened to talk to locals at a restaurant who had no understanding of who Lewis was.

Upon visiting Sauk Centre, he lamented at being forced to leave behind the wondrous W.P.A Guides To The States. Stopping at a diner for directions, Steinbeck realized that our American society is oblivious to its surroundings, life and culture. Steinbeck mentioned that Americans have put "cleanliness first at the expense of taste" (as he travels through Fargo, North Dakota), and that the mentality of our nation has grown bland. Allowing his thoughts to slip back to his time in Minnesota, he lamented, "It looks as though the natural contentiousness of people has died" referring to the political ignorance that society seemed to cling to, bringing before our eyes the lack of risk our once-rebellious nation now embraces. Throughout the section, Steinbeck uses simple, symbolic entities he encounters in his travels to express his views of the mindset of the country. For instance, at one point he speaks of a rafter of turkey, and after casting criticism and ridicule at the source of Thanksgiving dinner, ends the string of insults with an unexpected transition to American life. He states, "And suddenly I thought of that valley of the turkeys and wondered how I could have the gall to think turkeys stupid. Indeed, they have an advantage over us.

They are good to eat." "I am in love with Montana," said Steinbeck. He explained it as a place unaffected by television; a place with kind, laid-back individuals. "It seemed to me that the frantic bustle of America was not in Montana." He went to the battlefield of Little Big Horn. He traveled through the "Injun Country" and thought of an author who wrote a novel about war against the Nez Perce tribes. Steinbeck and Charley then traveled to Yellowstone National Park, a place that "is no more representative of America than Disneyland." Here, the gentle and non-confrontational Charley showed a side of himself Steinbeck had never seen: Charley's canine instincts caused him to go crazy barking at a grizzly bear in the road. They next visited the Great Divide in the Rocky Mountains. He imagined American explorers Lewis and Clark and early French explorers and wondered whether or not those men were impressed with what they found in America. Steinbeck then visited Seattle, Washington and California. Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley region of California, so much of the narrative is his revisit of the area, seeing its changes and progression, particularly the population growth.

Steinbeck reflected on seeing the Columbia River how Lewis and Clark must have felt when coming west. After this, he noted the changes the west had undergone since then: “It was only as I approached Seattle that the unbelievable change became apparent... I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction”. Rocinante, Steinbeck’s truck, then had a flat tire on a remote back road and in his retelling of the unfortunate event, he wrote, “It was obvious that the other tire might go at any minute, and it was Sunday and it was raining and it was Oregon”. Though the specialized tires were hard to come by, the problem was resolved in mere hours by the unexpected generosity of a gas station attendant. The episode, occurring to the wealthy Steinbeck in an enormously well-equipped and self-contained camper, is a send-up of similar desperate scenes in The Grapes of Wrath; but the episode seemed to mean something beyond comedy to the author anyway. Steinbeck then visited the giant redwood trees and ancient Sequoia trees that he had come to appreciate and adore in his lifetime.

He said, “The vainest, most slap-happy and irreverent of men, in the presence of redwoods, goes under a spell of wonder and respect”. When Charley refuses to urinate on the trees (a "salute" for a dog, as Steinbeck remarks), Steinbeck opines: “If I thought he did it out of spite or to make a joke,’ I said to myself, ‘I’d kill him out of hand”. He then visited a bar from his youth where he met and caught up with many friends, learning that a lot of regulars and childhood chums had died (many names from previous novels are mentioned and seen, or suggested to be, real people). He then seemed to say goodbye to his hometown, for the last time, and making an allusion to a book by Thomas Wolfe You Can't Go Home Again. He then concluded with, “I printed once more on my eyes, south, west, and north, and then we hurried away from the permanent and changeless past where my mother is always shooting a wildcat and my father is always burning his name with his love”. PART FOUR Steinbeck then made his way through the state of Texas, which he came to dread.

Steinbeck felt that "people either passionately love or passionately hate Texas," referring to people who are just passersby like himself. He mentioned a book by Edna Ferber about a tiny group of rich Texans, and related it to his own experience with a family similar to the one in the book at his Texas Thanksgiving. He elaborated more on his Thanksgiving and then went on to talk about the black and white relations in the south compared to the relations in the north and in his hometown of Salinas, California, sharing the theory of "separate but equal’. Steinbeck wrote about the desegregation of schools and how there was a change in the north. In the southern states, such as Texas, he discussed about how when people are not proud of something they have been involved in, that they don't like to welcome witnesses, because they believe the witnesses may be the ones causing all the trouble. During his journey through Texas, he stayed in Amarillo, where his faithful dog companion, Charley, became ill and stayed in a veterinary hospital for a couple of days. Steinbeck then realized what it would be like to travel without his companion. Steinbeck then discussed his ideas of a strong "difference between an American and the Americans".

He referred to previous experiences where people have described Americans badly and then turned to him in telling him that he/she was not speaking about him, but the others. If true, then he assumed it is true with every other country's people such as the British, or the Frenchman and the French. So even though he dreaded to see and hear the events of his travels through Texas, he took a lot from it. Steinbeck was drawn to the “distortion of normal life” and left Texas in search of the so-called "Cheerleaders" who were protesting the integration of black children in a school in New Orleans. Before he reached the city, Steinbeck welcomed in the “singing language of Acadia” while recalling the memory of an old friend, Dr. St. Martin, who healed children and Cajuns. Upon entering New Orleans, Steinbeck encountered the racism of the South and soon found that racism was not only towards blacks, but also towards Jews, “ It’s the goddamn New York Jews cause all the trouble”. Steinbeck then experienced the “bestial and filthy” show that the Cheerleaders put on while the black children entered school.

The applause and praise of the crowd brought Steinbeck to realize that there were no thoughtful people like his old friends Lyle Saxon and Roark Bradford, in the city and that they had “left New Orleans misrepresented to the world” . After the incident, Steinbeck no longer desired to visit some of his favorite places, like Galatoire’s Restaurant, fearing more racially divided ideals. In search of a secluded place, he sat beside the "Father of Waters", or Mississippi River, and encountered a man who looked similar to Greco San Pablo. They ate together and talked of Lewis Carroll and the famous “queer” 1845 tombstone inscription of Robert John Creswell (Alas that one whose darnthly joy had often to trust in heaven should canty thus sudden to from all its hopes benivens and though thy love for off remore that dealt the dog pest thou left to prove thy sufferings while below).

After giving a ride to a wary black man, an angry black student, and a racist white man, Steinbeck concluded that Southern people were afraid to change their way of life, just as were the Cockney children of London (who he believed were unsettled when the regularity of the London Blitz bombing came to an end), and that most people of the South will retain this fear of change, despite the Gandhi-inspired works of Martin Luther King. To declare his own position, Steinbeck tells the story of a family of blacks known to him during his Salinas childhood, the Coopers. Mr Cooper was hard-working, honest, thrifty, respectable, the Cooper sons academically and artistically gifted. In other words, they represented an antithesis of the calumnies Steinbeck had heard during his Southern travels. Steinbeck's journey concludes with his jamming Rocinante across a busy New York street, during a failed attempt at making a U-turn. As he says to a traffic policeman, 'Officer, I've driven this thing all over the country - mountains, plains, deserts.

And now I'm back in my own town, where I live - and I'm lost.' John Ernst Steinbeck (1902 – 1968) was an American writer. He wrote a total of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Salvatore Incardona Best In Show Daily By 1960 John Steinbeck (1902-1968) had achieved both fame and fortune. He and his third wife, Elaine, split their time primarily in New York City and Sag Harbor, and most of their trips were to Europe. Steinbeck and Poodle Charlie Because Steinbeck had been ill the previous year, he began to re-consider how he wanted to spend the next few years. He decided he wanted to re-acquaint himself with his own country, and he planned to take several months to go on his own, criss-crossing the country “in search of America.” He took with him his ten-year-old standard poodle, Charley. The book that resulted was Travels with Charley: In Search of America.

Charley was an eager traveler and loved road trips. At a time when camper trucks were a bit unusual, Steinbeck decided this was the ideal way for him to travel so he commissioned a specially-built truck that he then proceeded to outfit with necessary equipment and supplies. During the planning and packing, Steinbeck writes that Charley was in a state of mild hysteria, worrying that perhaps he wasn’t on the passenger manifest. “During the weeks of preparation he was underfoot the whole time and made a damned nuisance of himself. He took to hiding in the truck, creeping in and trying to make himself look small.” Of course, Charley was part of the plan all along. Steinbeck waned him along, and Elaine felt that it was better that her husband have some type of companion along rather than traveling solo. Elaine planned to meet up with them at a couple of stops along the way. Travels with Charley: In Search of America Rocinante Before they departed, Steinbeck christened the truck “Rocinante,” after Don Quixote’s trusty horse.

Charley rode shotgun in the truck, and his method for alerting Steinbeck that it was time for a rest stop was a “Ftt” sound that was generally effective. The two would stop and Charley would find an unsuspecting bush or tree to anoint, and Steinbeck would poke around a bit to see if anyone or anything interested him. While Charley is an ever-present companion, he does not participate in many activities that are described in the book. One passage in the book, however, is priceless for dog owners: Steinbeck’s description of how Charley wakes him in the morning. “Charley likes to get up early, and he likes me to get up early, too. And why shouldn’t he? Right after his breakfast he goes back to sleep. Over the years he has developed a number of innocent-appearing ways to get me up. He can shake himself and his collar loud enough to wake the dead. If that doesn’t work he gets a sneezing fit. But perhaps his most irritating method is to sit quietly beside the bed and stare into my face with a sweet and forgiving look on his face; I come out of deep sleep with the feeling of being looked at.

But I have learned to keep my eyes tight shut. If I even blink he sneezes and stretches, and that night’s sleep is over for me. Often the war of wills goes on for quite a time, I squinching my eyes shut and he forgiving me, but he nearly always wins. He likes traveling so much he wanted to get started early, and early for Charley is the first tempering of darkness with the dawn.” Though Charley suffered two bouts of prostatitis that required vet care and a pause in the journey, Steinbeck makes it clear that Charley is an asset. When Steinbeck does get a conversation going it often begins with the dog. Most Memorable Trip Scene The most memorable and historic moments described in Travel with Charley occur near the end of the trip when Steinbeck visited New Orleans. He is there when protesters (white parents who became known as the Cheerleaders) showed up daily to shout their disapproval of school integration. Four African-American girls, including Ruby Bridges, were escorted to school by federal marshals, amidst taunting of racial epithets and physical effort to interfere. The crowd stayed around to shout just as many invectives at the white children who arrived intending to better mapattend an integrated school.

The scene is a reminder of our country’s continued struggle with race issues. From New Orleans, Steinbeck and Charley turn north and are glad to return to New York and home. There is no afterward that explains Charley in retirement, but we can rest assured that he was an able companion on the trip and lived out the rest of his years with the Steinbecks. The Book Today Reading the book today is a disappointment. While there is some interesting commentary on our country and a few apt descriptions, of places he visited or things he saw, much of it is Steinbeck’s ruminations during his travel. The time spent with the book often feels like listening to the complaints of a crotchety old uncle. Much of the time Steinbeck has difficulty getting people to talk to him… something I absolutely don’t understand. If you look pleasant and interested, most Americans will be happy to tell you some of their story.

While Steinbeck’s early work was a gift to America for enlightening us to the plight of those caught up in the Depression, and his novels contained characters readers will never forget, he had clearly gone through some sort of a change—perhaps health-related or perhaps great affected by the blacklisting era that affected many of his friends; he was not blacklisted but was a constant target of the IRS. At any rate, something put him in a different state of mind during these later years. During the summer Kate Kelly celebrates the “Dog Days of Summer” by sending two true dog stories per week to readers during July and August. To be added to this list, please email Kate at kate@americacomesalive.com and put “dogs” in the subject line. Charley the Dog in Travels with Charley NEXT Character Analysis Okay, yeah, we know—Charley is a dog, so what's he doing in the "Characters" section? We get your point. However, as you may have noticed from reading the book, Steinbeck sees all kinds of human qualities in Charley and even imagines him as participating in full dialogues about his feelings and intentions. Plus, he actually gets the most robust characterization of anyone in the book.

So, without further ado, here's what you need to know about the French poodle. He's Very Regal and Very French He's not even just regal—Steinbeck describes him as a "gentleman poodle" with a fancier background and finer sensibilities and problems than most humans. This is how Steinbeck introduces him: Actually his name is Charles le Chien. He was born in Bercy on the outskirts of Paris and trained in France, and while he knows a little poodle English, he responds quickly only to commands in French. Otherwise he has to translate, and that slows him down. He is a very big poodle, of a color called bleu, and he is blue when he is clean. Charley is a born diplomat. He prefers negotiation to fighting, and properly so, since he is very bad at fighting. Only once in his ten years has he been in trouble—when he met a dog who refused to negotiate. (1.2.14) So, yeah, that gives you a pretty good idea of the kind of character (and, in Steinbeck's case, psychosis) we're dealing with.

Charley is sophisticated enough to prefer negotiating to street fighting, and he's a "diplomat"—say what? Also, unlike most Americans, the dog is bilingual. So yeah, he's got a more impressive resume and a stronger interest in diplomacy than most folks and he's not even... folks. Oh, and we should also probably mention that he's named for Steinbeck's uncle. Got Dignity? Charley's actually got a fair amount of pride and a strong sense of dignity, and he can get kind of haughty when he feels he's been wronged. All of these qualities are in full display when Steinbeck picks Charley up from being groomed and boarded while Steinbeck was in Chicago: Charley was torn three ways—with anger at me for leaving him, with gladness at the sight of Rocinante, and with pure pride in his appearance. For when Charley is groomed and clipped and washed he is as pleased with himself as is a man with a good tailor or a woman newly patinaed by a beauty parlor, all of whom can believe they are like that clear through.

Charley's combed columns of legs were noble things, his cap of silver blue fur was rakish, and he carried the pompon of his tail like the baton of a bandmaster. A wealth of combed and clipped mustache gave him the appearance and attitude of a French rake of the nineteenth century, and incidentally concealed his crooked front teeth. I happen to now what he looks like without the tailoring. One summer when his fur grew matted and mildewed I clipped him to the skin. Under those sturdy towers of legs are spindly shanks, thin and not too straight; with his chest ruff removed one can see the sagging stomach of the middle-aged. But if Charley was aware of his deep-down inadequacy, he gave no sign. If manners maketh man, then manner and grooming maketh poodle. He sat straight and nobly in the seat of Rocinante and he gave me to understand that while forgiveness was not impossible, I would have to work for it. (3.1.4) First of all, Charley is not pleased that Steinbeck left him, and he lets his displeasure be known.

Also, we learn that Charley feels particularly proud and dignified after his bath, but he naturally feels pretty sure of himself most of the time, even when he's not as immaculately groomed. He's Ready for English Class Yup, in addition to looking good and knowing it, Charley only associates with the smartest, most intelligent people, according to Steinbeck. He's also extremely intuitive: He has always associated with the learned, the gentle, the literate, and the reasonable both in France and in America. And Charley is no more like a dog dog than he is like a cat. His perceptions are sharp and delicate and he is a mind-reader. I don't know that he can read the thoughts of other dogs, but he can read mine. Before a plan is half formed in my mind, Charley knows about it, and he knows whether he is to be included in it. There's no question about this.

(3.3.14) Steinbeck claims a couple of different times that he thinks Charley can read minds, and whether he literally believes that to be true, he's certainly suggesting that, at the very least, Charley is attuned to what's going on around him and can reason pretty well. In Steinbeck's view, this means he's really more like a human than a dog. He's Not Fierce Like Beyoncé , But Close Despite all of Steinbeck's claims that his dog isn't like other dogs, Charley does have one very dog-like trait: strong, irrational, no-good feelings toward other animals (sometimes). All Charley's diplomacy and reasonableness go out the window when he sees bears, for example: To the best of my knowledge Charley had never seen a bear, and in his whole history had showed great tolerance for every living thing. Besides all this, Charley is a coward, so deep-seated a coward that he has developed a technique for concealing it. And yet he showed every evidence of wanting to get out and murder a bear that outweighed him a thousand to one. I don't understand it.

(3.6.10) Charley gets all aggressive with the bears even though this makes zero sense—the bears could clearly take him—and basically works against Steinbeck's image of him as this peace-loving, rational dog who is more reasonable than most humans. John Steinbeck | The Bark John Steinbeck Barnaby Conrad I treasure the last time I saw John Steinbeck. We met for lunch in San Francisco while he was on the final lap of driving his camper around the United States, the basis of his best-selling book Travels with Charley. We were at Enrico’s sidewalk care, and Charley, the big Poodle, sat obediently in a corner near our table. With us was Howard Gossage, the innovative advertising man who, among other things, had given the world the current rage, Beethoven sweatshirts. Oh, to have had a tape recorder and been able to catch the sound as well as the words on the following dialogue, because John growled out his sentences in ursine grunts while Howard’s congenital stammer heightened rather than hampered his wit. “Look at that dog over there,” said John.

“Yesterday in the great redwoods of Muir Woods he lifted his log on a tree that was twenty feet across, three hundred feet high and a thousand years old. Howard, Howard! What’s left in life for that poor dog?” Howard thought of the terrible dilemma for a moment and then said, “Well, J-J-John, he could always t-t-teach!” Nobel prize-winner John Steinbeck had a great affinity for domestic animals, as can be seen in many of his novels and short stories, but nowhere is his love and understanding of dogs more apparent than in his picaresque and picturesque Travels with Charley. I recently re-read the book and was dazzled by it and fascinated by the eponymous dog, Charley. Early in the 1960s, Steinbeck, who had left California and was living on Long Island, New York, was feeling restless, with a growing and insistent urge to renew his acquaintance with America—all of America. Accordingly, he bough a small, one-man camper truck, which he christened Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s horse.

He outfitted it for a long and serious hegira that would last for sixteen weeks and result in a classic literary work. At first he was going to do it all alone, but then he asked his wife if he could take along their beloved big Poodle for companionship. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “If you get into trouble, Charley can go for help.” “Elaine,” John answered sternly, “Charley isn’t Lassie?” But John, at the age of 58, was somewhat worried about traveling alone off the beaten path, and he was delighted that his dog would be with him. Tough gentle in disposition, Charley was, according to Steinbeck, “a good watch dog—has a roar like a lion, designed to conceal from night-wandering strangers the fact that he couldn’t bite his way out of a cornet de papier.” Day by day as Steinbeck prepared his camper for the long swing around America, Charley grew more excited—and more worried about being left behind; like so many watchful canine companions, he could read the signs of departure, “long before the suitcases come out.” But this time Charley would not be left behind.

Finally they set out, Charley sitting in the front seat, his head almost as high as the six-foot Steinbeck. For the next sixteen weeks the pair would travel around the United States, eating and sleeping together in the little camper, Steinbeck recording his impression of the places and people he encountered. Charley loved the traveling and would take a great interest in the scenery as well as the people and animals they encountered. There are so many wonderful happenings in this delightful odyssey. I had not read the book in thirty years, and I was amazed at how informative, fresh, funny and often profound it is. I was sorry when Rocinante finally came to the end of its voyage of discovery, but in reading I learned a great deal about America, as well as John Steinbeck. And perhaps best of all, I came to know and love a remarkable Poodle.

Question: What breed was John Steinbeck's dog Charley?
Answer: Standard Poodle